The present invention relates to systems and apparatus for displaying goods or articles to prospective purchasers in stores and shops.
Typically, retailers display articles or goods in long rows of shelves, making product differentiation difficult for customers. Shelf displays are often too high or too deep for customers to readily access the displayed product, particularly when a large inventory is being displayed. This problem has been addressed in the past by use of free-standing individual displays, which are set off from the rows of shelves to create a more prominent display of an individual product and permit the merchandiser to display a large inventory which is more easily accessible to customers than shelf displays.
Various free-standing, vertical display units are known. Some employ a plurality of vertical standards or tray spacers, between which trays are positioned, while others employ a single standard or center pole, around which a plurality of trays are placed. Each of these types of displays has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, the center pole-type of display provides greater visibility for the product displayed than the type of display employing a plurality of spacer poles around the periphery of the storage trays. Some known center pole-type displays, however, have traditionally required complex construction to support substantial loads. Other center pole-type units permit trays to rest on top of merchandise beneath each tray, and therefore do not require such rigid construction. However, these units fail to provide convenient means for storing empty trays, and do not permit easy access to full trays beneath the empty top tray. An example of such device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,351. Still other center pole-type units employ display trays which are fastened to the center pole. This type of display has the advantage of permitting easy access to goods stored on all trays, but requires the unit to be reassembled in order to vary heights between trays. Additionally, because the trays do not rest on the merchandise directly below, this type of unit is disadvantageous in that the trays and fastening means are limited in their ability to support substantial loads. An example of this type of unit is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,439.
Another type of known vertical display unit employs a plurality of supporting poles around the periphery of each stacked tray. The primary advantage of this type of unit is that merchandise can be readily accessed from all trays rather than only the top tray. This is a particularly important feature when different products or products of varying heights are to be displayed on the same unit. An additional advantage of these types of units is that the spacer poles permit the weight of the assembly to be isolated from the shelves, and transmitted by the spacer poles to the base. Examples of this type of unit are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,010,698 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,245,365. The disadvantages of these types of units are that they do not provide the same degree of product visibility as the center-pole type of display, since the peripheral poles tend to hide the displayed product. Additionally, these types of units have traditionally been cumbersome to assemble or disassemble requiring locking pins to position the trays on the spacer poles or washers to enhance the stability of the structure. A further disadvantage of the assembly shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,010,698 is that the spacer poles are not all identically constructed, requiring production of different types of poles and limiting the versatility of the unit.